About Liberals Together

Saturday, 25 May 2013

Yesterday I received an email from Lib
Dem HQ encouraging me to participate in a forthcoming national ‘campaign’* centred
on jobs.

Putting aside the question of how
effective the Liberal Democrats in government are when it comes to employment,
this prompted three thoughts:

1) In campaigning terms: this seems the
wrong way around. Liberal Democrats are
doing (relatively) well in areas with strong local networks and personalities:
that is what is sustaining support for the party nationally, rather than
national messages supporting local networks.So this feels like an attempt to hijack local networks, rather than
empower them.

2) In liberal terms: a campaign about
the economy that centres on national government doing things for localities seems odd.There isn’t anything in the campaign materials
about how local government (or businesses or civil society) can do things for themselves. Which is strange because Liberal Democrats
such as David Boyle have lots
of really interesting things to say on the subject.

3) If the national party wants activists
for a nationally-directed campaign on the economy, Spring Conference should have been allowed
to debate the economy…

So I’m puzzled by how the national party
thinks this campaign will inspire liberals, let alone anyone else.

In contrast, plenty of people in the
area where I live are motivated by a local (non-party-political) economic
campaign.This is in support
of the Covered Market in Oxford.Very briefly,
this is a retail area whose tenants are mainly local businesses. The Labour-run
City Council want to massively increase rents: they don’t realise or don’t care
that this will simply result in local businesses being replaced by anonymous
national chains (who will provide less satisfactory employment, and suck money
out of the local economy, they may not even manage to pay their taxes).The Council does have a challenge to balance
the books, but don’t seem to be able to think creatively about supporting local
retail businesses at all.There is an
element of ‘save this/save that’ to the campaign, but it is also articulating
the value of local businesses, and catching a general mood of dissatisfaction
with national retail chains – in other words a clear link between the local and
the national.This is the sort of economic
campaign that liberal-minded people can get excited by.

*If a data gathering
exercise with publicity stunts can really be called a campaign.

Wednesday, 15 May 2013

1) The Resignation log doesn’t include defections to the
Labour party, but here are three recent examples: Andrew Duffield (Hexham cllr and parliamentary
candidate); ElizabethShenton (Staffordshire cllr, and parliamentary
candidate in the 2008 Crewe and Nantwich by-election); and Rosie Jolly (Liverpool cllr).

They
all offer fairly standard explanations. They criticise the national Liberal Democrats
for the government’s failures in social justice and public services. Since 2010
manyother Lib Dem-to-Labour defectorshavemadesimilarpoints.That isn’t to belittle them.On
the economy, the NHS and social welfare, Lib Dems in government and parliament
have certainly supported some unjust and ineffective measures, even within the
narrow room for manoeuvre of a coalition. (And of course Lib Dem members
haven’t been shy in saying so.)

But while I
understand why people might leave the party on this basis, I’m bemused that they
should switch to Labour.The Labour
Party hasn’t offered any distinctive alternatives, hasn’t even committed to
reversing many of the measures they claim to reject.And the Labour government was hardly just or
sensible, or even very distinct from the Conservatives – especially with the
Private Finance Initiative, their support for the house price bubble, and for
the financial sector’s irresponsibility.All this is even before we get on to wider issues: the Labour Party
remains centralising and managerial, with a good dose of authoritarianism.How can someone who’s been involved in the Liberal
Democrats overcome these worries?

I’d like to
understand rather than condemn, partly because I try to be a generous soul, but
also because I don’t want to underestimate our opponents.

So, why
might anyone move from the Lib Dems to Labour?

Ambition? Elizabeth Shenton acknowledges that she has national political
ambitions, and Rosie Jolly had been deselected as a Lib Dem candidate, but I
suppose will remain a councillor with Labour.Ambition is a standard accusation against political defectors.But (as someone who has no political
ambitions myself) I don’t think it really works.Ambition is an essential part of democratic
political culture.I’m glad that some
liberals have personal political ambitions, or we’d have no councillors, MPs or
MEPs.Of course ambition on its own
isn’t enough, it can always slide into selfishness or egoism.But I can’t see it as a reason for condemning
or dismissing defectors.

The value of party politics? Perhaps it is better to be in a
national party than none at all.I’m
sympathetic to this.Not being a member
of a major party can seem like ‘opting out’ of serious political
participation.It is all too easy to be right all the time, and cultivate a sense of smug moral superiority, if one isn’t part of a
national political project.Similar
criticisms can be made of joining a tiny group such as the Liberal Party or
National Health Action.But even here,
the Green Party seems much more satisfactory than Labour for someone with
liberal instincts.(Not that I advocate
joining them, by the way, as I’ve explained before!)

Being part of a club?Politics isn’t just about national positions, especially for local
councillors.It can good to be part of a
local club, and being a lone independent councillor must be pretty isolating,
especially for someone elected in a party campaign. If Labour offers the most welcolming club on
the council, that must be a temptation.Lib Dems have certainly benefitted from this over the years, too.

Either/or culture?Labour and the Tories define themselves by not being each other.Many people in Britain define their politics
as anti-Tory before anything else.This politics of anger seems rooted in popular culture as
much as specific policies or philosophy. (I’ve devoted more energy than most to
defeating Conservative election candidates, but still don’t really get it.)Liberals have done a lot to challenge
either/or political attitudes, but perhaps defectors to Labour have been sucked
into it.It seems a pity they don’t have
more confidence in being liberals, but then they’ve not been helped by our
national leadership –not only policy
decisions since 2010, but in the failure to cultivate a core constituency for
the Liberal Democrats (as Simon Titley and others have said for a long time).

Hmmm… so
perhaps joining Labour shows a certain lack of imagination in a former Liberal
Democrat, but I’m still puzzled…

2) Fred
Carver (a former Camden councillor) has also resigned from the Lib Dems,
although may continue to vote for us.He
explains on his blog:

‘So I suppose this is my letter of resignation from the
Liberal Democrats. It is not really. I’ve read a fair few letters of resignation
from Lib Dems over the last few years and artistically they have been
disappointing…’

He doesn’t
disappoint at all, in an insightful and very funny analysis of the Liberal
Democrats’ culture, and British political life more generally. Some of it might seem rather too close to the
bone (‘Fact: most normal people don’t know what a Riso is. Most
Liberal Democrats have a thorough understanding of how to maintain and repair
an RA4200’). It’s
already received a lot of attention among Lib Dem blogs, but worth having a
look if you haven’t already.My one
observation, though, is that it is a little London-centric.For him Brent East may be part of the
founding myth, but down my way Newbury still has a certain resonance…

3)For consistency’s sake I should also note a
new member of the Liberal Democrats: Aberdeenshire councillor Fergus Hood has joined from the SNP.

Thursday, 9 May 2013

Launching a
civil society initiative on local election day might not be the best way to
grab the attention of the party political, so I thought I’d mention the Fair Deal for Your Local campaign by CAMRA and other groups.

This is
essentially an opportunity to contribute to the government’s consultation on
Pubco reform (filling in the online survey doesn’t take long at all); although there are also other
elements to the campaign – yesterday there was a demonstration yesterday
outside a pub in Witney where the landlord is threatened with eviction.

Pubs at
their best are based on face-to-face local communities, where commercial
transactions are embedded in a wider social framework.*However, the big Pubcos have consistently
undermined this, taking an unfair slice of their licencees’ revenues by their
arrangements for selling beer, and the rents they charge.

The Pubcos
rely on an uneven distribution of profits between the local productive economy
(pub landlords and their staff) and an anonymous exploitative financial sector
– so they encapsulates many of the wider problems of our economy and society.

I find this
a refreshing campaign (in every sense), because it goes beyond a reactive
demand to ‘Save this’ or ‘Defend that!’, and make some practical proposals:

“We
support the principle that a tied licensee should be no worse off than a
free-of-tie licensee, join us in calling for:

Market Rent Only (free of
tie option) and Guest Beer Options for licensees of large Pubcos

A powerful Code and
Adjudicator to monitor large Pubcos and end abuses

The fundamental problem is that the large pub companies are taking more
than is reasonable from the profits of each pub. A fair deal will result in the
average tied pub being £4,000 better off annually.”

The campaign
isn’t party political, but it has a liberal feel to it. The government’s consultation itself is a
result of Lib Dem influence.
And it is worth notingtwo of the liberals involved in the campaign: Greg Mulholland MP (Chair of the Parliamentary Save the
Pub Group) and Gareth Epps (who is also Co-Chair of the Social Liberal Forum).

Click here to fill in the government’s consultation, it only takes a few minutes.

*Rather than the
social sphere being subordinated to the financial, as market fundamentalists prefer,
or the commercial being regarded as inherently alien to the social, as many on
the left would have it.

Friday, 3 May 2013

I can’t
resist adding that I was delighted to help re-elect my councillor Jean Fooks,
and to run the committee room for Roz
Smith (against a strong Labour campaign), and that the splendid Neil Fawcett and
John Howson have been elected to Oxfordshire County Council, too.But I realise that many good councillors have
lost their seats today, through no fault of their own. Perhaps our new slogan
should be ‘Where we work (and the national leadership doesn’t
undermine us) we win’?

Nick Clegg’s
suggestion that this is somehow an inevitable result of a process of maturing
towards being a ‘party of government’ is unpersuasive, and makes me worry that
he really doesn’t mind the party’s base being damaged.

In the cascade of local election analysis, here are some initial results from candidates who have left the Liberal Democrats since 2010.(But, as usual, I’m not concerned with those who’ve joined Labour or the Tories).*

In general, the poor Green showing is notable: only 22 councillors were elected nationally, a gain of 5.Even their share of the vote is not being picked up on national projections, and as of this morning it seemed their average vote was down 3% to 7% in seats where they stood.I find it puzzling that they have not been able to attract many more former Lib Dems (amongst others).After all, UKIP show that ‘outsider’ parties can do well…It may be of some solace to the Greens that by growing networks slowly they won’t be as fractious as UKIP is (and I’m sure will continue to be), but they should still be doing much better.

Independents:Stuart Parsons, (Independent, Save the Friarage) was elected for Richmond, North Yorks.He wasn’t standing against a Liberal Democrat opponent. Derek Giles and Steven van der Kerkhove were elected to a two-member division in Cambridgeshire (beating Tories, UKIP, Lab, Lib Dem, Green, in that order).

Mebyon Kernow:Derek Collins was elected to his town council, but came in third place for St Austell Poltair on Cornwall Council, which Jackie Bull won for the Liberal Democrats(!). Former County Councillor Tamsin Williams, who moved from the Lib Dems to MK in September 2012, did not seek to defend her seat.

Liberal Party: I’ve not seen any post-2010 Lib Dems standing for the Liberal Party, so haven’t looked systematically for their results (although I notice Fran Oborski was elected to Worcestershire County Council, and they secured two seats in North Yorks). But there continues to be no sign that the party is moving beyond its scattered cores, or offering an attractive home for any but a handful of former Liberal Democrats.

* This is bound to be incomplete. Add a comment to tell me about more!

Wednesday, 24 April 2013

I’m fortunate to live in an area with a
strong Liberal Democrat presence so (although I’ve not had a lot of time), I
can have the satisfaction of helping some splendid county council candidates with a serious chance of
getting (re-)elected.

But for many thousands of party members
this isn’t possible.They live in areas
where we have little or no chance of retaining or winning seats this time
around, still less of having a major say in the council chamber.And this year more members than ever won’t
even have the opportunity to cast a vote for a Liberal Democrat candidate.All credit
to our candidates and activists battling away against the odds.Even being a paper candidate, getting the
nomination papers signed in an unhopeful ward, flies a little flag for
liberalism (and for democratic politics in general).But this can’t be very satisfying in itself.

Partly this encapsulates a general
feature of British politics: as the Electoral Reform Society’s Rotten Boroughs
campaign shows (and Strange Thoughts provides a case study).ERS’s policy
solution – extending STV for local government from Scotland to England and
Wales – is clearly sensible, but it doesn’t answer the immediate question for the
Liberal Democrats.

Connect offers only a limited response:
one can help with telephone canvassing anywhere.But this doesn’t provide the satisfaction of
participating in the life of the community where one lives (and I suspect is
really appealing only to fairly experienced campaigners).There are some very good national party
groups/campaigns (such as Liberal Democrats Against Secret Courts), but again these offer something different to
engaging in a local project.

If party membership doesn’t offer a
tangible way to participate in the local community, and the national leadership
is relentlessly disappointing, then what is a liberal to do?Perhaps the answer is not to centre local party activity
on elections. (Of course this isn’t
anything new: as Bernard Greaves and Gordon Lishman put it in The Theory and Practice of Community Politics, ‘If elections and the holding of elected office become the sole
or even the major part of our politics we will have become corrupted by the
very system of government and administration that community politics sets out
to challenge.’)

There are dangers here, though.I’m not advocating encroaching on the
non-party-political nature of civil society groups.I’ve seen Labour and the Greens and leftist
sects try to hijack local organisations, and it isn’t pretty. The Liberal Democrats I’ve known have been
scrupulous in avoiding this, but that re-opens the question of why a liberal
should be involved in the party at all, rather than an active local civil society
group.

Another danger is the limitation of
‘Save our X’ campaigns.These might be
worthwhile in particular circumstances, but ultimately are purely reactive, part
of the politics of anger rather than the politics of cheerfulness.(Although sometimes they can generate more
positive projects, as with Suffolk
libraries).

What a local Liberal Democrat
non-electoral project might look like would depend on individual
circumstances. A fairly common but very
modest example is having a party presence at a Pride event.Another possibility: there are plenty of
party members who are school governors.It would certainly be undesirable to make parent governor elections
party political, but perhaps Liberal Democrat governors in given city or
constituency might meet a couple of times a year (with any other interested
party member, including school pupils!) to think about their tasks in liberal
terms? Something beyond a ‘pizza and politics’ event on schools, which also
entailed practical action. I’d certainly
be interested in going along to something like that.But then I suppose then I should I try to
organise it myself…

Wednesday, 17 April 2013

1) Francesca Montemaggi, former Cardiff
councillor and blogger, has
resigned.The last straw for her was
Nick Clegg’s recent anti-immigration rhetoric, although she is unhappy about a range
of other issues, too.For her, ‘The
Liberal Democrats have failed to be the voice of liberalism.’ I’ve added her thoughtful blog to the list; she also contributes
to Open Democracy.

I wonder if in retrospect this
resignation, together with those left over the secret courts bill, will seem to
be a watershed.Earlier resignations have
centred on ‘social justice’ (university fees, the NHS, welfare etc).These resignations centre on much more
distinctively liberal – and Liberal Democrat – strengths.If the national leadership is alienating
members over the administration of justice and attitudes toward immigration,
then what are ‘core’ issues are left for them to rally the party around?

Two members with resonant names in
twentieth-century liberal politics have also resigned:

3) Lady Russell-Johnston, the widow of Russell Johnston,
has also
resigned, after joining the party in 1964.Russell Johnston was MP for Inverness (in various permutations of
constituency name) between 1964 and 1997, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats (1988-1992), and clearly an inspiring and
sympathetic figure to many good liberals.(I’ve enjoyed reading some things by him, although am too young to have
been inspired at the time…).

This resignation is rather different
from the norm.Lady Russell-Johnston opposes
Liberal Democrat support for equal marriage, which conflicts with her Christian
understanding of the term.Like almost
every member of the party I know (including Christians from various denominations),
I’m delighted by our role in this legislation, and by the changing cultural
attitudes which have made it possible.Liberalism isn’t static, and Lady Russell-Johnston is now outside the
liberal consensus, so – although I don’t want to sound vindictive – I’d rather
that she does resign if this issue is fundamental to her politics. But support for equal marriage won’t be nearly
enough – politically or intellectually – to stop the continued stream of
departures from the Liberal Democrats over other issues.

Thursday, 11 April 2013

I like to think that cheerfulness is a
virtue: not only an emotional response to pleasant circumstances, but part of
the disposition of someone willing to try to make a positive contribution to
the world, even when times are hard.As
a character in Philip Pullman’s The Amber
Spyglass puts it, ‘We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful
and kind and curious and patient, and we’ve got to study and think and work
hard…’.

Since the formation of the Coalition,
and especially this week, I’ve been struck by how powerful the politics of
anger is, across the political spectrum.So many people in Britain seem to define their politics in terms of what
they are against, rather than what they are for.(And I should admit to having delivered thousands of leaflets over the years including messages such as ‘only
x can beat y here’.I probably wrote
some of them, too…). Yet political anger
is too prone to become dissipated. For
instance, reversing most of Margaret Thatcher’s more contentious policies just
isn’t on the agenda.That isn’t a good
thing, but suggests that passionate anger can all too easily become steam
rather than heat.(A tangible attempt to
challenge this is Don’t Hate Donate).

One of the attractive things about
liberals, as opposed to much of the contemporary ‘consumer left’ (who hate
Thatcher, hate Blair, hate Bush, hate Clegg etc etc),* is that on the whole I
think our disposition revolves around some positives; valuing things such as
liberty, mutuality, locality and diversity, rather than being defined by what
we don’t like.The labels ‘left’ and
‘right’ require their opposites for definition, but liberalism is more
self-sufficient.

Of course I don’t claim that
cheerfulness is exclusively liberal, nor that liberals agree on the nature of
our values.Really this is just a rather
long-winded way of saying that I’ve added a ‘Reasons to stay’ (in the Liberal
Democrats) box at the top of the blog.

* To tamper a little with the inspired Word of
Monty Python’s Life of Brian...

Reg: Listen. If you wanted to join the P.F.J., you'd have to really
hate the Romans.

Brian: I do!

Reg: Oh, yeah? How much?

Brian: A lot!

Reg: Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than
the Romans are the fucking Liberal Democrats.

Friday, 5 April 2013

This
will be an occasional feature to keep track of resignations. See the Resignation
log above for an attempt at a fuller list of statements, although it
doesn't include defections to Labour or the Tories. (Email to let me know
about anyone who is missing!)

1)
Greg
Foxsmith, Islington councillor and lawyer, is yet another loss over the
Secret Courts issue. He becomes an independent councillor. His
statement encapsulates how the national party so often undermines local
networks:

"I
am acutely aware that the local party in Islington are united in not supporting
the 'Justice and Security' Bill. I recall excellent Conference speeches from
Bridget Fox and our MEP Sarah Ludford in Brighton which helped carry the motion
that the Liberal Democrat Party would reject secret Courts.

I know their views have not changed, and they
will argue that the best way to influence or change policy for the better is
within the Party. For them, and many others, I believe that to be true, and I
wish those who campaign within the Party every success. There are also other
campaigns and values which can still be fought at National Level as a member as
a Liberal Democrat member.

For
me, however, civil liberties have always been a priority and something for
which I have been associated personally and professionally."

2)
Dave
Smithson, a former Liverpool councillor, has let his party membership
lapse. As he puts it: "I've
just sponsored a guide dog puppy called Pluto - more rewarding use of £5pm than
party membership!"

Yet
another case of the Lib Dems' loss being civil society's gain.

It
is worth noting the responses of local party representatives (Paula Keaveney in
Liverpool and Terry Stacy in Islington): both characterised by sadness rather
than anger. It makes me wonder whether local parties should think about
instituting 'ex membership secretaries' to keep in friendly touch with former
members...

Thursday, 28 March 2013

I can’t understand why a
liberal would join the Tories or Labour, but the Greens seem to be a different
matter.A number of Liberal Democrats
have joined the Greens since May 2010, for reasons that most fellow-liberals
won’t find unsympathetic.In their own
words (more or less), here are some examples:Alexis
Rowell (sometime Camden cllr), Clive
Smith (Worcestershire cllr),Alan
Weeks (Hampshire cllr), Robert
Vint (Totnes cllr).(I should also
mention Martin
Ford – formerly Lib Dem, now Green Party councillor – and others from
Aberdeenshire, although that
sorry businesspredates
the Coalition).

The distinction that I’ve
heard over the years between ‘practical but sullied’ Liberal Democrats,
contrasted with ‘idealistic but unrealistic’ Greens seems over-simplistic.There has been a constant exchange of
activists backwards and forwards between the Green Party and the Liberals/Lib
Dems, for many different reasons. (This dates back to the Ecology Party of the early 1970s, the ‘Green
Voice’ initiative of the late1980s etc etc). Shared attitudes go beyond the
environment, to cover social questions, and an interest in bottom-up,
participatory public life. (Conrad Russell’s chapter on Green Liberalism in An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Liberalism encapsulates
much of this.) These similarities are
why Green leaders tend see it as a strategic imperative to attack the Liberal
Democrats.Similarly, the admirable Green Liberal Democrats have
struggled to find a distinctive role within our party precisely because their
message is so uncontroversial for most members.

My observation of the
Green Party during the last 15 years, in a city where they are part of the
political landscape, and for two years administered the local authority with the Liberal Democrats, is that Greensare diverse ideologically, but can be roughly
categorised into three strands: (1) a small number of highly committed
environmentalists; (2) ‘angry leftists’ using the party as their latest vehicle;
and (3) environmentally-aware community-minded people, some of whom I’d be happy
to see in my party.*Nationally, the
Green Party is less ideologically coherent than the Liberal Democrats, with all
sorts of more or less articulated strands reflected by a churn
in members.
The ‘angry leftists’ are organised
nationally, while the few liberals (as far as I can see) are not, and
perhaps by temperament are less suited to factional struggle.(After all, sound liberals are often not even
that good at factional struggle within the Liberal Democrats.) Green Party organisation across the country
is patchy, so liberals will encounter varied local groups, more or less
congenial, but it’s no surprise that the direction of travel for
members/activists at the moment is one way.However, there doesn’t yet seem to be any
sort of critical mass of movement among activists or councillors.** So while
individual liberals may find a political home in the Green Party, I’ll be
surprised if it becomes an alternative pole for liberal politics.

* Admittedly members of the third
strand sometimes seem rather smug and sanctimonious, and their lifestyles could
often match their rhetoric more closely, but the latter is the case for some
favourite liberals, too…

**Voters may be another
matter.In the perennial search for a
Nice Leftish Party, ‘consumer lefty’ voters now seem more sympathetic to the
Greens than to the Liberal Democrats.This
demographic might not to be an asset to any party organisationally or
intellectually, but their votes can be very useful, as in the London Mayoral
election (although Scottish and Irish experience shows us that Green electoral
fortunes can go down as well as up).But this blog isn’t really about them.

Friday, 22 March 2013

James Hargrave,
a sometime council candidate from Suffolk, left the Liberal Democrats in January
2012, his resignation
letter raised tuition fees, ‘free schools’, and benefits – an all too
familiar trio of concerns.

His blog also details his involvement with
the new
civil society entity (an Industrial and Provident Society) which now runs
the county library service in Suffolk. This emerged from the campaign to prevent
library closures or privatisation, and seems a really interesting, promising,
bottom-up, participatory way to provide (not ‘deliver’) public services. As James puts
it:

‘The way libraries are now run in Suffolk may not be what everyone
wanted but it has been my view for some time that the IPS offers the best
future for Suffolk’s libraries. With a Board able to negotiate as good a deal
as possible in funding and independence from some of the more annoying aspects
of County Council control the IPS has an opportunity to make the most of the
funding available.

My experience as a school governor has shown me the benefits that local
autonomy can offer. The relationship with the council becomes more of working
together and simply having a cheque book means schools can buy what they need
without all the bureaucracy of a large organisation.’

This seems a
very appealing project (in accord with the best traditions of British
liberalism), which I’ll follow with interest.

There is a
wider issue here, too.Political liberalism
has long gone hand in hand with wider civic participation.(Interestingly, Liberal Party
members in the 1980s were much more likely than their SDP counterparts to be
involved in other civil society groups).Almost all the Lib Dem activists I know are also involved in other
activities: perhaps this has something to do with the liberal instinct that
there are numerous worthwhile facets to life, which can’t be reduced to class
conflict or religion or anything else, even liberalism itself.

But there is
also the fact that participation in civil society projects can often provide a
much more satisfying sense of agency – of control over one’s own life and
immediate environment, often in very small but very tangible ways – than can
party politics.When party activity
revolves around winning elections, there is the danger that this ends up
passing agency on (to councillors, council officers, Deputy Prime Ministers
etc), rather than spreading it around.And
we all know the frustrations that can lead to.

I’m sure
that James Hargrave is one of very many former Liberal Democrat campaigners
whose energies are now directed more towards civil society, and the party’s
response can’t lie only in the field of policies.

On 19 March LibDemVoice
has published my article on Liberals Together, which prompted
comments from various current and former members of the Liberal Democrats, and
a blog post from Oranjepan.S/he put the question of party membership in a much broader perspective,
wisely concluding:

‘Political parties are
cultural institutions which embody and uphold the values of civilisation - they
form a vital link in the chain of social engagement, and without the
participation they afford everyone becomes a loser.’

By the way, if anyone would like to contribute a guest post to this blog,
please get in touch.

Wednesday, 13 March 2013

I just read the short pamphlet ‘Merger or
Renewal?’, by MichaelMeadowcroft, from January 1988. (Available to download here).It’s well worth thinking about this period
because (without seeking to apportion any blame), a tremendous amount of
liberal energy was dissipated by the merger and associated drama, and a lot of good liberals (activists and
supporters) drifted away from the Liberal Democrats and the Liberal Party
altogether.*

A couple of observations struck me
especially.Meadowcroft identifies ‘that constituency of young concerned
idealists who have tended to support - and even work for – Labour because they saw no other better answer…’ [although 25
years later I think they are just as likely to wish a plague on both our
houses].‘Up to the Alliance the Liberal Party was able to recruit
such individuals when the party set its stall out for them. Many of our
Councillors, candidates and officers are exactly this kind of person but it has
often been a hard job persuading them to stay in
recent years. In addition all too often our rare recruits from this key grouphave come through personal
acquaintance with a like Liberal rather than through anyindirect means. Unless we
only wish to win the plush constituencies we must appeal to those who currently
drift to Labour by default. That means addressing issues of concern to
feminists, youth, those concerned about the arts, about green issues, and about
the developing world.’ This challenge has only been intensified since 2010.

Finally, this gem could have been written in
March 2013:

‘There
is always something slightly odd about the way the MPs choose to act corporately
from time to time. It is rather like the brave survivors of a polar expedition
coming to tell the rest of us who got killed off en route that, despite what
everyone else thinks, they are sure that it was actually a rather successful
expedition and all we need next time are somewhat different arrangements and we
shall all survive.’

*My impression is that more of them ended up not
involved in party politics than in the Greens or Labour, but I’m too young to
make a judgement from personal observation, so others might correct me.

Sunday, 10 March 2013

There are good reasons to stay in the Liberal Democrats (here are two pithy summaries, from
from George Potter, and Jennie Rigg). But to get the ball rolling with this blog, here is a round-up of comments by various liberals on why they have left the party:

Kiron Reid, in October 2012, to contest the PCC election. (He came third as an independent candidate for Merseyside, clearly ahead of the official Liberal Democrat. He wrote about this experiences in Liberator 357, February 2013).